pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server

That's an indication that there is pulseaudio residue. One thing in that is that it declares the "default" output to be via "pulse" which makes the connection to its audio library. That is all separate from the running or not of the pulseaudio program. To be sure, you should remove the associated configuration files.

Then you might look at what amixer -D default tells about the available controls.

Hi

You can choose soundcard in alsamixer by pressing F6. To adjust volume make sure "Master" is selected (or headphone if you are using that) and then arrow up(down to adjust.

It looks like jack soundserver and pulseaudio is running. If jack is running (and as a musician I am using it myself when needed) please stop the daemon (maybe through qJackĆtl or commandline). Jack prevents other servers (as alsa) to use the soundcard. Just use jack for recording and mixing sound at a (semi) professional level. It does not work by default on games and in browsers. Pulseaudio also makes the setup more complicated than it need to be. Edit /home/user/.config/pulse/client.conf and set autospawn = no. Then it will not restart by iself when you stop it. Log out and in. If needed stop pulseausio by passing pulseaudio -k in a terminal. Using just alsa is the simplest way to get audio as an ordinary user on Devuan.

Hope this helps
Lars H

Hi,

Well, F6 does not show any other sound devices. The only thing jack related installed is libjack-jackd2, and I don't see any jack server process running. I got rid of pulseaudio altogether. Sound works, the mixers/volume controls/multiple audio apps all work - just not in stereo. In Debian buster, which is configured almost identically, it's stereo, and the output device is shown as Built-in Audio Analog Stereo. I just can't figure out what Devuan is doing differently...

Thanks for your input - somewhere in all this is a clue...

You can choose soundcard in alsamixer by pressing F6. To adjust volume make sure "Master" is selected (or headphone if you are using that) and then arrow up(down to adjust.

It looks like jack soundserver and pulseaudio is running. If jack is running (and as a musician I am using it myself when needed) please stop the daemon (maybe through qJackĆtl or commandline). Jack prevents other servers (as alsa) to use the soundcard. Just use jack for recording and mixing sound at a (semi) professional level. It does not work by default on games and in browsers. Pulseaudio also makes the setup more complicated than it need to be. Edit /home/user/.config/pulse/client.conf and set autospawn = no. Then it will not restart by iself when you stop it. Log out and in. If needed stop pulseausio by passing pulseaudio -k in a terminal. Using just alsa is the simplest way to get audio as an ordinary user on Devuan.

Hope this helps
Lars H

Can we see

lspci -knn | grep -A2 Audio
aplay -Ll

But of course!

$ lspci -knn | grep -A2 Audio
00:1f.3 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 200 Series PCH HD Audio [8086:a2f0]
	Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company 200 Series PCH HD Audio [103c:82f2]
	Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
	Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

$ aplay -L
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
jack
    JACK Audio Connection Kit
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
default:CARD=PCH
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    Default Audio Device
sysdefault:CARD=PCH
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    Front speakers
surround21:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=1
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 1
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=2
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 2
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=3
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 3
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=4
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 4
    HDMI Audio Output
dmix:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=PCH,DEV=3
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0
    Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=PCH,DEV=7
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 1
    Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=PCH,DEV=8
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 2
    Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=PCH,DEV=9
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 3
    Direct sample mixing device
dmix:CARD=PCH,DEV=10
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 4
    Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=PCH,DEV=3
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0
    Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=PCH,DEV=7
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 1
    Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=PCH,DEV=8
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 2
    Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=PCH,DEV=9
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 3
    Direct sample snooping device
dsnoop:CARD=PCH,DEV=10
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 4
    Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=3
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=7
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 1
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=8
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 2
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=9
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 3
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=10
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 4
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=0
    HDA Intel PCH, ALC891 Analog
    Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=3
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0
    Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=7
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 1
    Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=8
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 2
    Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=9
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 3
    Hardware device with all software conversions
plughw:CARD=PCH,DEV=10
    HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 4
    Hardware device with all software conversions
usbstream:CARD=PCH
    HDA Intel PCH
    USB Stream Output

And as I indicated above, alsamixer shows

Card: HDA Intel PCH 
Chip: Realtek ALC891

also in alsamixer, you may be able to set the default device. hth

I see no option to do so. It reports:

Card: HDA Intel PCH  
Chip: Realtek ALC891 

Hi

First try from commandline with alsamixer. If you get sound alsa is working (and this is just fine. Pulseaudio is just an unnecessary layer). Then install volumeicon-alsa. It is gtk based and can replace the pulseaudio based frontend on your system. Can be placed on the menuline as well.

Have a nice day

Lars H

I have sound - just not stereo. Alsamixer doesn't seem to offer any other options.

First try from commandline with alsamixer. If you get sound alsa is working (and this is just fine. Pulseaudio is just an unnecessary layer). Then install volumeicon-alsa. It is gtk based and can replace the pulseaudio based frontend on your system. Can be placed on the menuline as well.

Have a nice day

Lars H

The sound output as shown in the 'Sound' app under 'Sound & Video' in the MATE menu shows as 'HD Intel PCH mono'. That is the only output device shown. In buster/MATE, it shows as 'Built-in analog stereo sound' (something close to that - going by memory here). This is also how it showed up in ascii/MATE.

This issue is present whether it's a clean install of beowulf or and upgrade from ascii, and whether I use pulseaudio or apulse. I would like to improve my sound quality, so if anyone has any ideas as to how I might fix this, I'm all ears :-)

TIA...